


Time is Cruel, To Rob Us from Ourselves

by Llama1412



Series: Don't Cry For Me, Temeria [12]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dysfunctional Family, Elf Culture & Customs, Gen, Growing Up, Magic, Minor Character Death, Music, Survivor Guilt, Time Travel, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29888148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama1412/pseuds/Llama1412
Summary: An AU of Don’t Cry for Me, Temeria/(Im)Perfect Strangers where a magical artifact sends everyone back through events of Iorveth’s past. Iorveth is less than pleased, but the insights into his character may be invaluable for more than one person present.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Triss Merigold, Iorveth & Saskia, Iorveth & Scoia'tael (The Witcher), Iorveth/Vernon Roche
Series: Don't Cry For Me, Temeria [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1912225
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17





	Time is Cruel, To Rob Us from Ourselves

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a quote by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey: Time is a cruel thief to rob us of our former selves. We lose as much to life as we do to death.  
> This is an AU of my Don't Cry for Me, Temeria series, which means the relationships of the characters carry over from there. What you need to know:  
> \- Ciaran realized Iorveth was in love with a human and rejected him as a leader  
> \- Brigida (childhood friend of Roche) knows about Iorveth and Roche and absolutely does not approve and does not like Iorveth  
> \- Other than the two above, Saskia, Anais, Boussy, Rinn, Geralt, and Triss know about their relationship. The Blue Stripes and Scoia'tael do not.  
> \- Roche has taken custody of the La Valette children and is raising them with help from everyone. They are apprenticing under Saskia and Brigida acts as their governess. Their best friend (of the group here) is Rinn, one of Iorveth's Scoia'tael.

If there was anyone to blame for this, Iorveth was pretty sure the Blue Stripes were responsible. From what he’d heard from Vernon, the Blue Stripes were often to blame for strange events like this.

Granted, Iorveth’s own Scoia’tael (well… former Scoia’tael? What was the right way to refer to the remainder of his former army now that they were integrating into Vergen’s society?) could be pretty chaotic, but  _ they _ at least had a healthy respect for magic.

The Stripes clearly had no respect for anything whatsoever.

Iorveth came to this conclusion after a chaotic morning, when his bizarre day took a turn for the truly insane. It started with guarding Saskia, as most things began these days. He took his responsibility to keep Saskia safe  _ very _ seriously. Even though she kind of didn’t need it. But she kind of  _ did,  _ too, and they  _ needed _ her. There was no one who could take her place if something happened to her, which meant that Iorveth’s duty was not just to protect his leader, but to protect the entire world they were working to build.

Well,  _ really,  _ it started late in the night, when the miners on the night shift uncovered a mysterious artifact that positively radiated magic. Not being idiots, the dwarves had immediately summoned Saskia and Triss, even if it meant waking them all up far too early in the morning.

The problem was, Triss was befuddled. The artifact was very clearly magic, but she couldn’t seem to figure out what it  _ was,  _ and that worried Iorveth. He determined that he’d keep a close eye on it, just to make sure. After all, anything unknown was a potential threat.

Frankly, focusing on the artifact was better than focusing on the chaos taking place around him. Vernon seemed to feel the same, sticking close by Iorveth and pointedly ignoring his men, though he was keeping an eye on the children.

Anais and Boussy were currently being “entertained” by what appeared to be some sort of wrestling competition between the seven Blue Stripes and the six Scoia’tael, all of whom had been attempting to unobtrusively follow Iorveth, so they must be worried about him.

Not that you’d know it, given that they were entirely focused on the Blue Stripes. Even Brigida seemed mildly entertained by the antics of the collective idiots, though she spared a moment every once in a while to glare at him. Because of course she did.

Iorveth tried to ignore her. It helped that Geralt had stepped into the path of her sight line, absorbing the hatred radiating from her easily. Iorveth had never been so glad to count the Witcher as a friend.

Anais’s laughter drew his attention to where Sylvar had Fenn and Thirteen trapped in headlocks under each arm. He snorted, calling out to Sylvar in Elder, “savour your victory. They will never let you forget it and will probably challenge you at every opportunity.”

Squirming to try to get free, Thirteen tilted his head. “What did you say? Are you giving him tips?”

“Ha! Like I need tips to defeat you idiots,” Sylvar cackled, tightening his arms. 

“This is why you should learn Elder,” Triss commented, handing the artifact – a small gem-like stone that easily fit in the palm of a hand and glimmered unnaturally – to Saskia as she gave up trying to figure it out.

“Eh, I know enough,” Fenn grumbled. “Like… oh! Like aedd! Learned that one from listening to the miners. Means shard.”

Thirteen had stopped struggling, apparently resigning himself to his fate under Sylvar’s arm. “Hmm, Luka’s taught me some. Uh… cáerme, meaning fate or destiny.”

“Darganfod,” Fenn piped up. “That one is just fun to say. I forget what it means though.

“To discover,” six elves said at the same time. 

“Right, sure, whatever. Um… tuath. That one’s kinda fun to say, too. Means… whisper, I think?”

“Whisper. You mean like what you’re incapable of doing?” Finch teased.

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Language!” half the room scolded as one. 

“Don’t know the word for that,” Thirteen chuckled, “but there’s one phrase Luka says all the damn time.” He imitated Luka, gesturing with his arms and entirely unconcerned that he was bent over and locked in place. “‘Observe the journey, young pupil,’” he quoted dramatically, “‘You cannot understand the story if you do not see the journey through time that it takes.’ And she  _ always _ follows it up with the Elder, it’s so annoying. ‘Mire va’en tedd, Thirteen, mire va’en tedd’.”

There was a knock on the council room door and Saskia rose to answer it, passing the artifact to Iorveth to keep safe. Iorveth frowned down at it dubiously. In his experience, stones with inexplicable power were never a good thing. Folklore tended to agree with him, too.

Hopefully they could figure out what this thing was and be rid of it quickly.

“Your pronunciation is terrible,” Sylvar laughed. 

“Nu-uh!” Thirteen insisted. “I said it  _ exactly _ like Luka does! ‘Mire va’en tedd’.”

The stone in Iorveth’s palm suddenly started humming and he nearly dropped it in alarm. “Uh, Triss? Saskia? I think it’s doing something.”

Immediately, Triss was by his side, holding a hand over the stone and frowning in concentration. Saskia, on the other hand, was slow to walk back into the open part of the room, and once she did, he realized why. Following behind her was none other than Ciaran, his former second in command and elf who currently despised him more than any other.

Iorveth swallowed, fingers tightening around the stone even as its sharp edges dug into his hand. Gods how he wished he could change the past and go back to before Ciaran hated him. But as much as he wanted that, Iorveth knew that he would never give up Vernon, never give up their relationship, even if it disgusted every elf in existence. He was actually  _ happy _ with Vernon, and he intended to savour that for as long as possible.

His life had long since taught him that good things were temporary. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t be enjoyed until the end came.

The sharp edges of the stone cut into his fingers, drawing blood, and Iorveth loosened his hand immediately, almost dropping the damned artifact. Bright light flared from the stone and this time, Iorveth did drop it, hissing and instinctively bringing his bloody finger to his mouth. 

There were sounds of confusion and alarm from others in the room, but Iorveth found himself unable to see anything except the white light that seared into his eye. Immediately, he reached for his swords, wondering if this was an assassination attempt on Saskia.

Not if he had anything to say about it.

But when the light finally cleared, Iorveth blinked his eye open and found himself entirely lost. They weren’t in the council room anymore, but on a terrace somewhere, somewhere where it was  _ night _ instead of mid-morning, and gods dammit, he’d  _ known _ the fucking artifact was gonna be a problem.

“What the fuck!?” Vernon – and several others – gasped, looking around wildly. This time, no one commented on their language.

“Saskia!” Iorveth called, moving to her side immediately, even if it meant stationing himself near Ciaran, who just glared.

“Anais! Boussy! Are you all right!?” Vernon and Brigida both rushed to the children, who suddenly found themself sitting on the railing around the terrace, rather than on the council table. Considering they didn’t know how high up they were, Iorveth was rather relieved when the two adults picked up a child each. Rinn stood nearby, knives in hand and ready to kill to defend the children.

“Where are we?” someone asked, and Iorveth looked around, trying to assess the situation. Except… except he couldn’t  _ actually _ be seeing what he was, because it just wasn’t possible. It  _ wasn’t. _

The terrace was attached to a small multi-story house, and Iorveth suddenly knew what he would see if he went inside. But it  _ couldn’t _ be. 

The towering buildings and grand arches in their view were familiar to Iorveth.  _ Too _ familiar.

“It’s Ellander,” he heard himself saying, and felt nineteen pairs of eyes come to rest on him. He cleared his throat. “But it can’t be. It’s Ellander long before it  _ was _ Ellander.”

Imadia, the only other person old enough to understand what he was talking about nodded. “It  _ can’t _ be. But I would swear that the last time I saw anything like this was before humans.”

“What!?” several people yelped.

Saskia narrowed her eyes, and Iorveth could see her brain whirring at light speed behind that blue gaze.

“Not just before humans,” Iorveth reluctantly provided another piece of the puzzle. “I  _ recognize _ this view, but I haven’t seen it since I was a child.”

“So a  _ very _ long time ago,” Fenn commented, and Finch smacked the back of his head. 

“Pre-Conjunction?” Vernon asked, eyes wide.

“By at least a century,” Iorveth confirmed. 

“How!? How did we get here!?” Silas fretted.

“The artifact,” Geralt said, “where is it?”

“I dropped it,” Iorveth said, eye automatically searching the floor of the terrace. The stone was nowhere in sight.

Triss pursed her lips. “Geralt is right. I think – I think we must have accidentally triggered the artifact.”

“Observe the journey of time,” Geralt frowned, “that’s what Thirteen said. Said three times, and three is a powerful number. But the light didn’t start until after that. Until after…”

“After I cut my finger,” Iorveth realized. Fuck. Were they dealing with blood magic? He didn’t know much about that sort of thing, but he knew that it was dangerous.

Geralt nodded. “Which might mean the artifact applied the words to you. You said you recognized this place?”

“Yeah, but time travel is impossible!”

“Improbable, perhaps, but not impossible. But it should take an extraordinary amount of power.”

“How do you even know that?”

Geralt shrugged. “My child surprise, Ciri. She has unique powers. The Aen Elle elves call her the Lady of Space and Time.”

“The Aen Elle?” 

“From what I know, they’re an offshoot of the Aen Seidhe. Instead of staying on the continent during the Conjunction of the Spheres, they traveled to other worlds and… well, from what Ciri said, they kind of, um, enslaved everyone they could?”

“Oh, I remember hearing stories about that,” Imadia said. “The nobles and the rich people and such left. But humans and monsters and other creatures had arrived, so that part of our history kind of got lost.”

Iorveth nodded. There had been a lot going on during the Conjunction, but he remembered his family debating if they should leave or not. Iorveth, on the other hand, had never been interested in leaving the earth they were connected to. He couldn’t understand how  _ any  _ elf could leave.

“So… we really traveled to the past, before the Conjunction?” Fenn sounded nervous, fidgeting by striking flint against itself and sending sparks flying around him. 

“I think we may have,” Triss confirmed, looking grim. “Can you tell us anything about where we are, Iorveth? You said we’re in Ellander?”

Iorveth nodded, uncertain of how exactly to answer, but he was saved by Saskia.

“Do you… hear that?” Saskia asked, head tilted to the side, cocking her ear towards the house they were inexplicably standing on a terrace of. The house Iorveth had been trying  _ not _ to look at, because he was pretty sure he recognized it. And if he was right, he did not want to think about what else they might see. 

This wasn’t possible. It just  _ wasn’t! _

“Hear what?” Vernon asked in alarm, one hand resting on his weapon and the other holding Anais on his hip. 

“I do,” Geralt said, also tilting his head. “It sounds like…”

“A baby,” Saskia concluded, concern obvious in her voice.

That… had not been the answer Iorveth had been expecting. Maybe he was wrong about the house? Why would there be a baby if it  _ was _ what he was thinking of?

Rinn opened the door to the terrace and suddenly they could all hear it: the cries of a child desperate for attention.

With one look, Iorveth knew that what he was thinking was true. He recognized the room inside, even more than he had recognized the view. He had grown up in that room, grown up with that view. 

With a sudden foreboding, Iorveth realized that the baby might very well be  _ him. _


End file.
